Malala shifted to Rawalpindi for further treatment

PESHAWAR: Malala Yousufzai has been shifted to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC) in Rawalpindi from the Combined Military Hospital here for further treatment.

"Her condition is not yet out of danger despite improvement. She is being shifted to Rawalpindi," Masood Kausar, the governor of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told reporters.

According to the DG ISPR Asim Bajwa, doctors recommended that AFIC has better facilities for post-surgery care

The decision to shift Malala to Rawalpindi was made by a panel of Pakistani and British doctors.

Neurosurgeon Colonel Junaid told reporters that the next 10-15 days are critical for Malala.

Doctors were successful in removing a bullet which pierced Malala’s head and was lodged in her shoulder on Wednesday. Following the operation, Malala remains unconscious and is being kept in the intensive care unit of the hospital.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik and KP information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told reporters on Thursday that Malala would not be sent abroad for treatment as her condition was improving.

Malala along with two other students were shot outside their school on Tuesday in an attack claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

Malala won international recognition for highlighting Taliban atrocities in Swat three years ago, when militants led by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah burned girls' schools and terrorised the valley.

Her struggle resonated with tens of thousands of girls who were being denied an education by militants across northwest Pakistan, where the government has been fighting local Taliban since 2007.